


Of Lavender

by quandary



Series: In Distance We're Losing [1]
Category: Fire Emblem Series, Fire Emblem: Fuukasetsugetsu | Fire Emblem: Three Houses
Genre: F/F, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Mentions of Violence, Pining, Post-Time Skip, Sickfic, Sort Of, Unresolved Romantic Tension, ingrid is a little injured
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-12
Updated: 2019-09-12
Packaged: 2020-10-15 00:10:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,721
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20609672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/quandary/pseuds/quandary
Summary: Ingrid falls twice. Once from the heavens, and second from grace.





	Of Lavender

**Author's Note:**

> small prequel to something else im writing. felt like this was necessary background info, and before i knew it, the whole thing grew a life of it's own. the small moments and microcosms here are entirely self-indulgent, but hopefully there are things someone else can enjoy. as for the names of places, i had to ad-lib as there are no canon villages named outside of Leonie's (afaik!).

Sunlight broke into the room in thin shafts, pallid and weak. Reality came to Ingrid like a dream, hazy and out of focus. Her head pounded, felt full to bursting like her brain had grown too big for her skull. She had no idea how she came to be laying in the bed, why her arm and leg throbbed alongside her aching head. Why her nose felt like a foreign object arbitrarily slapped onto her face.

Ingrid must have made a sound, for a white-robed woman with brown hair--a nurse, she assumed--came to her side and placed a placating hand upon her shoulder. The Seiros Crest stood out on her chest, all in golden filigree.

"Easy now," the woman urged gently. Her round face swam in Ingrid's vision. She could think of nothing but the pain clamping her head unrelentingly, let alone of how she got there.

She reached behind Ingrid, adjusted the pillows and helped her sit up.

"What's your name, dear?" She asked, voice calm and even. Ingrid thought for a moment, thought how weird it was for her to ask that. 

"Ingrid Galatea." She said hoarsely. Her throat was a desert, and no amount of swallowing brought relief.

The nurse smiled then, satisfied with her answer. "Very good, Countess."

She must have seen the confusion reigning on Ingrid’s face. She paused, then said, "We believe you've hit your head rather hard--among other things. You're in the Seiros convent of Oddveig." Almost a mile away from Alfhild, where the skirmish took place. And farther still from home.

Dumfounded, Ingrid sat there, letting the news sink in. All the while, the woman, whose name she still didn’t bother to ask, puttered around the room. There were three other patients besides herself, all men and in varying stages of healing. (The dying were surely held elsewhere, far away from them.) Her forearm was covered in a cast, up to the elbow itself, awkward and almost heavy. Beneath the threadbare blanket tossed over her lap, she could make out the outline of another cast on her leg.

Then the memory came back to her: Kyphon's horrible scream, the arrow kissing the tip of her ear to sink in her mount's neck, how his scream cut off. Bile rose in her throat.

What was just a border skirmish became so much more, and here she lay for goddess knows how long. Time was a luxury she didn't have, her father didn't even know where she was. If she were even alive.

The nurse wandered back to Ingrid’s side, offered her a cup of water. She drank from it gratefully, careful to sip.

"I can take it from here, Sarah."

Ingrid's eyes snapped from Sarah, to the figure entering the room. 

"Mercedes." She must have hit her head harder than she thought.

"You're looking a lot better than last I saw you." A warm smile grew on her face, eyes bright with fondness. "Though I have to admit I'd have preferred seeing you again on better terms." Mercedes' hair was shorter now, looked as if she took a knife to it on a whim (much like Ingrid did herself). She wore a dress, all in earth tones, and copious amounts of lace and frills on the shoulders and sleeves. 

Sarah left Ingrid's side with a nod to Mercedes, and busied herself with other tasks and patients.

"Can't say I disagree." Ingrid grimaced. Moving her shoulder sent fresh waves of pain down to her elbow and arm. 

"How are you feeling?" Mercedes was serious then, searching Ingrid's face with concern. Her warm hand found its place on Ingrid's shoulder.

"Lucky to be alive, I suppose." As lucky as one could be with a leg and an arm out of commission. Ingrid glanced at Mercedes' hand, hated it when she removed it. Twin spots of colour grew on her cheeks.

"Very. You suffered a rather terrible fracture to your leg. I did what I could with my healing, but… when bone…" she stopped herself then, as if reconsidering her words. "Unfortunately, I don't think you're going anywhere anytime soon. 

Ingrid's stomach plummeted to the floor. She was essentially bed bound, like an idiot. Why didn't she pull up, safe from the archers? Then Kyphon would still be alive, and she wouldn't potentially have a lame leg.

Her father was right. In one fell swoop, she doomed her family. Who would marry her now? Especially now, with her face carrying a different topography than yesterday, with her leg ruined?

Shame had her face burning. Looking at Mercedes was much too hard, too painful. What must she think of her? She just felt stupid, in that moment. Stupider still for having Mercedes watch her crumble like so much sand. 

"Ingrid." Mercedes said softly, close to pleading. "You mustn't blame yourself."

She shook her head, the plea fell on deaf ears. No, all of this was her own doing, no one else's. Kyphon's senseless death, her injuries...

"There is no one else to blame." She couldn't stop the tears now, her voice was thick with them, hot and bitter as they were. "_My_ decisions led me here."

"What happened to you was an awful accident, no more." The hand upon Ingrid's arm was firm, Mercedes' grey eyes insistent. For a second, she almost believed her. Wanted to with a quiet desperation she grown too familiar with over the years.

"It's hard to see it as such." Ingrid wiped at her eyes with the palm of her hand. It was easy to feel sorry for herself in that moment, with her broken limbs and broken nose, with Kyphon lying forgotten on the battlefield, carrion for crows.

"I understand. But please, rest. The war surely isn't going anywhere." And it surely wasn't lacking for foolhardy idiots. 

"There are things that require my attention, but I'll be back." Mercedes gave her arm another squeeze, meant for it to be reassuring.

All Ingrid could do was nod. She was afraid if she talked, more regrets would spill out of her mouth, with Mercedes compelled to wave them away. 

Besides, she had a letter to write. As much as it humiliated her, her father had to know. She asked Sarah for what she needed.

The white magic worked wonders on her arm ("a simple break,'' the nurses said), but her leg was another matter. The nurses worried and fretted about infection, gangrene, but by the grace of the goddess neither touched her leg. 

Sarah would visit her in the mornings, lay her hands upon her leg, then her arm, the magic sending a chill through her limbs and with it, momentary relief. She should be happy about it, but being laid up in bed most of the time drove her out of her mind.

Walking, Sarah informed her, was a couple weeks off. While the magic she worked on her bones sped the healing process, it could not force it. For now, she hobbled around on crutches, growing listless, bored. Anxious. She hadn't heard from her father yet, and she knew that meant he was disappointed. Ingrid had disgraced the Galatea family, maybe irrevocably in his eyes. It broke her heart, but she felt powerless about it.

Some afternoons she whittled away in the convent’s atrium, just glad for the change of scenery. Fall had the leaves dancing to the ground in shades of yellow and red. Other nurses and nuns hurried around, arms full of linens, or pushing a trolley laden with books or other materials.

Some evenings she spent in the refectory, away from the noise of everyone else. The quiet brought a modicum of calm back to her, and Ingrid did her best to clear her head and think of nothing but the stars outside the windows.

Mercedes was wonderful company, when she could spare a moment or two, duty-bound as she was to tend to the sick and dying. (Ingrid found herself relishing those small moments, gave her something to look forward to during the days that seemed to stretch on forever.) She worried over Ingrid more than she was comfortable with, like it made her weak to have someone care for her. Like she should be doing everything by herself, even in such a state.

Ingrid wondered how Mercedes found herself here, on the outskirts of Oddveig. Asked her as much one hazy afternoon as she was helping Ingrid into a chair by the bed she felt trapped in.

Mercedes paused, back stiff.

"I go where I feel I'm needed." She said, small smile plucking at her mouth. It didn't reach her eyes, like all the other smiles had before.

The answer didn't satisfy Ingrid. Questions roiled through her head, tripping over each other to fly off her lips. She reigned them in, fixed the other woman with a stare she hoped was unbelieving.

"And the goddess sent down a divine revelation that you should come here? To the backwaters of the Charon border?"

Mercedes couldn't hide her discomfiture then. She had been caught, thick brows bunching together in consternation. Whether that was due to her goddess comment, or something else was anyone's guess. Irritation was plain all the same.

"The healers here are followers of the church of Seiros," Any sign of annoyance evaporated off her face. She was calm once more, and talking to Ingrid as if she were five. "As am I. It was by luck we met again, no more. All of Fódlan is ravaged by this war."

Nothing added up. While it’s true that Mercedes could have very well fallen in with a group of Seiros healers, Ingrid isn’t so sure she’d have done that so far from home. There was something she wasn't telling her, that much was obvious. Prying would get her nowhere. Mercedes did a valiant job of turning Ingrid's questioning around with half-truths. Once upon a time, she might have opened up.

Ingrid sighed, turned her attention to her hands folded upon her lap. The bruises had all but faded away. 

She could blame her aching leg for her prickliness but that would only be a cop out; Claude always told her she had a penchant for lectures and being a bit of an ass. Unfortunately, not even Mercedes was safe from that. 

"I… I'm sorry, Mercedes.” she said. 

Mercedes shook her head. "There is no need for that."

“I miss the way things used to be.” Ingrid’s eyes swung from her knuckles, to Mercedes.

She missed the mornings spent in the library, studying for whatever stupid test Manuela or Hanneman was proctoring later that day, the inside jokes shared with Annette. She missed sneaking off to Mercedes’ room for tea, and gentle conversation.

Most of all, she missed Felix and Sylvain and Dimitri. Dimitri was a shell of who he used to be, and talked to shadows and things that just weren’t there. He was sick, but no one in the Kingdom knew how to help him, least of all her. She hadn’t heard from Felix since the night of the coup, and Sylvain’s betrayal still cut deep.

“It was easier then, wasn’t it?” Mercedes perched herself at the edge of the bed, studying the stone floor at her feet. “Everyone seemed so happy.” Four long years had passed since Edelgard decided to wage her bloody war against the church. Faerghus felt that pain more keenly than the Alliance, however swiftly it crumbled against the Empire’s might. The north was cold, and poor for agriculture. Fear of another famine loomed in her mind constantly.

“We were happy.” She agreed. “But now, I’m mostly afraid.”

***

The third week brought rain, and the typical Faerghus chill that seemed to settle in the bones, made Ingrid's leg ache horribly. It did that now, when rain was coming, or the weather took a turn for the freezing. But Ingrid could walk at last, though never for long for she'd start limping.

That day, the sun broke through the heavy clouds in fits and starts. Ingrid sat by the window, watching birds fly south. Soon, she’d be sent on her way, much like those birds. The men who filled the other beds had already left, one by one. Now it was only her in that small room.

Her father finally sent word. Mercedes had brought the letter sealed with her family Crest. She said nothing when she handed it over, just watched Ingrid with a strange expression. Maybe it was sympathy. 

Butterflies took flight in her stomach.

The paper was thick and yellowed, the blue wax seal a lake in a sea of dying grass. With trembling fingers she removed the wax, unfurled the letter. 

_Ingrid, my daughter,_

_May your recovery be swift, and this accident an important lesson for you. Please, put this knight nonsense behind you. I did not make you Countess to play war with the Empire. Need I remind you of the poor harvest of this year? How the hoarfrost from Gautier lands extends further south? Fighting is not your business anymore; governing your birthright is._

_Your people need you. I need you._

_Your father,  
Anders Olaf Galatea_

Anger smothered the butterflies, made her shake with the effort of keeping it together. She did not speak. She couldn't, for surely she'd shout, scream at the walls. Silence fell between them, heavy as a shroud, with Ingrid's indignation enough to make Mercedes hesitate.

"Ingrid?" Mercedes said, voice low and close to a whisper. "What does it say?"

By way of answer, she passed her the letter. After a long moment, Mercedes looked up from the paper to Ingrid, mouth working for a response and coming up short.

"I… see." She said finally. 

"Three weeks, and that is all he has to say to me!" It was, quite literally, insult to injury. Duty-bound as she was as liege to Dimitri, to have her father dismiss everything she did for the kingdom was nothing short of a slap to the face. He might as well have been the one to throw her from the heavens.

Yes, she was Countess of Galatea lands, but did she not swear an oath to her king to answer the call to arms? 

"I can not believe the audacity of my father right now." Ingrid folded her hands on her lap, if only to still them. 

"I don't know what to say."

"There is nothing for you to say. This is a family matter, afterall."

"Even so," Mercedes said with a slight shake of her head. "Your father dismisses what you've just been through rather easily."

Ingrid had little to say to that. It was true: her near-death experience didn’t seem to matter to her father and he was quick to wave it away.

“To be honest,” she said. “I’m not sure what I expected from my father. Certainly not that.” There was a time when she loved him, and he loved her; how could she ignore the sacrifices he made for her in childhood? Illness and years of war ruined what remained of their relationship. Anders made her Countess out of necessity, for he had grown too sick to rightfully govern the county. 

“You know,” Mercedes began. “He sort of reminds me of my own father: domineering, controlling, even. Always thinks he knows best. There was a thoughtful look on her face as she stared past Ingrid’s head and out the window. The evening sun had wandered past the shuttered window an hour ago.

Then everything clicked into place: Mercedes wound up where she was to get as far away as possible from her father. To him, she was only worth the Crest she bore, and only to be wed off to whatever moderately influential family would take her. Like cattle. Like her.

Slowly, Mercedes’ dark eyes left the window and rested on Ingrid.

“But I learned I had to stop living for others, to do things that brought me joy, no one else.” Under her scrutiny, Ingrid couldn’t help but shudder. Mercedes saw right through her, could pick apart her feelings and unspool them like so much tangled yarn.

She hated it.

Yet she wanted it so badly, wanted to be understood with an ache in her chest that wouldn’t stop. Misery always loved company.

“I know you’re right, but I have to admit my father has a point. I have a duty to my people.” And yet she also had a duty to Dimitri, her king. Reconciling them both became an impossible task, now more than ever. 

The war with the Empire, dragged on into a weakening stalemate, exacerbated issues within and without Galatea County; some of it, if not most, she did not have answers for. The bulk of her people were stubborn, refused to flee to more fertile lands closer to Fhirdiad. Arguably, it would be safer too, away from the ravages of this goddess forsaken war.

Mercedes’ hand on her arm snapped her out of her dark thoughts.

“Promise me something,” she said softly. The dying sun cast her in bloody tones.

“Anything.” Ingrid all but blurted out, the word clumsy on her tongue.

“You’ll take care of yourself, won’t you?” Mercedes’ smile was brief, and tinged with sadness.

She blinked. That was it? Mercedes, having sensed her confusion, amended herself.

“I ask only because I know you won’t stop fighting.” And she was right. Ingrid couldn’t; she was in charge of so much now.

Years ago, she promised Dimitri to stay loyal and steadfast, not only to him, but to the kingdom--their home. What was one more promise?

“Only if you promise me something in return.” Her hand found Mercedes’, soft where hers were rough and calloused from holding a lance.

“And what would that be, I wonder.” Light returned to Mercedes’ eyes, some semblance of hope finding embers to feed upon.

“Stay in touch, nothing more.” And, ever so gently, she kissed the valley of her knuckles. Mercedes didn’t pull her hand away. They shared a companionable moment of silence, just the two of them, enjoying the peace and relative quiet of that small room.

"Sometimes I close my eyes, and I see you as I found you." The admission was sudden, unbidden, caused Ingrid to suck in a breath. "Lying half-dead under your pegasus, covered in so much blood." Unshed tears filled her eyes. Ingrid ached to wipe them away, make everything better. All she could do was sit there stupidly. Words would not come to her. What could she say to her?

"You see now why I ask you to be safe? It pained me to see you that way, Ingrid. It pains me every time, and my magic can only do so much for those hurt." She took her hand from Ingrid's to reach up and cup her cheek.

"Then it's you I have to thank,” The tenderness had Ingrid’s throat grow tight. Why was it her, always her, to treat her so delicately and have her at a loss? “For saving my life.” She said the words stiffly. Nothing wanted to cooperate. Not her mind, not her words. 

“No,” Mercedes’ hand left Ingrid’s face, and rested on her lap. Her smile this time was dimmer than the last. “I only did what was right.”

“I thank you all the same.” To hell with propriety. She rose to her feet and gathered Mercedes in a tight hug. She was taller than her, and easily nestled her chin in the crook of her neck. They stood like that for a long moment before Mercedes slipped out from her arms, and bid her goodnight. 

The following morning, Ingrid prepared to leave. The convent was generous enough to gift her a horse for travel. There wasn’t much for her to gather outside of her armour, and frankly, she was tempted to leave it behind. The sight of it was repulsive. There were parts still marred with gore, areas with huge dents. One of her greaves was missing.

Her fingers worried at a pale purple handkerchief--something Mercedes gave her almost five years ago. It used to smell of lavender, of her, once upon a time. Now it was old and tattered and bloodstained on one corner.

“You kept that after all this time?" Mercedes said, the fondness in her voice unmistakable. Ingrid gave a start, eyes flying to the doorway. She felt like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar.

"Why would I get rid of it?" She fought the urge to crumple the square of fabric in her hand, to hide it away in an effort to save face. Heat rose up her neck. The other woman shook her head.

"I'm just touched."

"It reminds me of better times, when everything was... simpler." Ingrid began, casting her eyes at the bed, where the remnants of her armour lay. “It reminds me of you.” The confession came out haltingly. Saying it gave the words a new weight, a new meaning, she didn’t have the energy to decipher. Not yet.

“I wanted to see you off.” There was colour on Mercedes’ face, and a small, bashful smile. It suited her well. Ingrid returned the smile with a lop-sided one of her own. She looked away, scratching at the new bump in her nose when her attention grew to be too much.

“I would like that.” And then, “You’ll remember my promise? To write me?”

“As long as you remember mine.”

It would have to be enough. It had to be. They walked to the exit of the convent in silence, the only sound their footsteps and the odd clank of Ingrid’s forsaken armour. The morning was bright and blue and a bit surreal. When they reached the mouth of the building, neither wanted to move. Responsibility spurred Ingrid to action, as it did in most things. Galatea County needed her.

"Until we meet again, Mercedes." She made as if to bow, but the other woman wouldn't have it. She bundled Ingrid up in a hug, kissed her on the cheek.

"Stay safe." Oh, what was another promise? 

Ingrid had half a mind to hold on. Reluctantly, she let go. With a heavy heart she turned for the stables, where a dappled grey was waiting for her. She left for Galatea County, leaving Mercedes behind.


End file.
